final - Borrow my wingset)

❝ take my hand and fly with me. ❞

His hand rest idly in his pant's pocket, thoughtlessly searching around for something specific; and once getting a hold on that such thing, he slipped it out of the stark black dress pants. A loose grip around the phone as he brings it up to chest level, and using his right pinky fingerprint to unlock the device. He scrolls through countless of useless and needing-to-be-deleted-yet-too-lazy-to apps before finally choosing the icon that read 'photos' underneath it, meeting a whole gallery of pictures.

His thumb stretches to the top of the screen before slowly dragging it down, and the pictures following suit. Years of endless regretable selfies of a girl, himself, and their groups of friends, are quickly shown before being scrolled by. It's not until he reaches the end - where the very first line of pictures taken are present - did he halt in his mindless scrolling. He tapped on the first picture in the list, the image enlarging itself to show, actually, the photo taken of a printed picture with a small date scrawled in the corner of it.

At age 5 they were strangers.

The wheels of a the moving van screeched to a hault. Her body momentarily jolted forward only to be restrained and forced back by the too-constricting seat belt. "We're here," the two syllables that passed through her father's lips and sent an unpleasant feeling through her very being.

Her eyes drifted out of the window to where they will be staying. Their new "home," hundreds of miles away from where she previously addressed as home.

A simple click unlocked her door; she gingerly pushed it open and stepped onto the solid tan-concrete sidewalk. A blast of heat immediately washed over her and all she was thinking: 'This is not home. This is a nightmare.'

"Hello." The young girl that had been staring at the large home before her for a good 4 or so minutes, turned to face the direction of the slightly high pitched voice. It was a boy. A weird boy though... he didn't look...Korean, per se. But he was definitely Asian - at least partly.

"Hi." She simply responded, her tone coming out harsher than intended, yet the boy was not fazed, much rather he kept his stance in the same place as a soccer ball was cradled in his grasp. His lips remained shut despite having gotten a response from the young female.

Her brows furrowed at this. 'What's wrong with him? Why isn't he talking anymore?' The girl that previously inwardly claimed to not have cared about the other was suddenly having a self-despute within her mind about why the boy was no longer talking.

'Pft- whatever.' She turned her head back to gaze upon her new home again, but she could still feel his eyes being bored into her small frame. Sweat pellets began to form and roll down her neck and forehead, she wasn't sure if it was from the sun or the heat of his stare.

Finally she looked back at him, "Can I help you with something?" The boy gazed up to the sky for a moment before silently returning his eyes onto the other and shaking his head. "Then why do you keep staring at me?!" At her question, his eyes suddenly roamed elsewhere then falling on the ball in hand. He took slow steps up to the girl until standing in front of her; he held out the soccer ball to the younger.

"Ball." He responded, as though the she wasn't aware of the object. The girl's eyes fell onto the black-and-white sports ball then back up at him. She shook her head and held out her palms in front of her, gently shoving the ball back to him.

"I can't take that. It's your toy."

The young male this time was the one to frown. He suddenly dropped to his knees before taking a seat on the sidewalk. He reached behind himself, searching for something in his small backpocket, and once obtaining it he placed it on the ground in front of him. He moved the soccer ball off to the side which offered himself enough room to focus on a new task.

"What are you doing?" She questioned, eyes trying to follow the boy's motives yet only getting caught in further confusion; and his lack of response was of no use.

She squated down in front of him, her arms rested on her knees as she quietly watched the boy do his small self-activity. It wasn't until he was close to complete did the former finally catch onto the project. "A plane?"

He looked up to her, only a smile apparent across his lips to signify that she was correct in her guess.

The boy stood up once again, taking the now finished plane between his small thumb and forefinger. He drew his hand back, almost about to propel it into the air until he stopped mid-action and took his regular stance again.

His arm stretched out as he offered her the contraption. She gazed upon it with furrow brows, gently pushing his hand and the plane back to himself. "You made it, you should keep it for yourself."

"But I made it for you."

Her brows that were once tilted down in confusion were now raised in surprise, though whether because he finally spoke to her again or due to his generosity - she wasn't sure. Instead she complied to his offer. She, hesitantly, took the paper flying contraption from his hand, while - unknowing to herself at the time - smiling.

She pulled her arm back before having launched the fairly well constructed plane into the sky. The two looked on in awe at the way the flimsy paper cut through the air.

...And then landed in the toy cementary that was Mr. Hudson's lawn.

Subtle chuckle emits from his closed lips. The memory relaying in his mind so clearly as though it all replayed before his eyes a few seconds ago.

He pinches the image closed to bring his screen back to the large array of images. This time he drags his thumb up the screen, searching through old yet a little more recent of photos. When he finally finds the image he's looking for, his finger immediately goes to click it.

At age 15 they were philosophical.

"Wendy? Where are you taking me..??"  Worry was evident in his trembling voice, yet even with his larger stature and greater strength, he found himself immobile and unable to prevent the smaller female from dragging him to 'god-knows-where.'

"Have some faith in me, Mark. You make it seem like I'm taking you to your doom." The female named Wendy retorted. Her hand was tightly gripped around his. It was no question to either them or onlookers that she was the leader of the two.

"Knowing where you've brought me and what you've gotten us into before- I wouldn't be surprised if you did bring me to my doom this time." Mark murmured under his breath, and Wendy's eye roll followed after having caught bits and pieces of his quiet response.

"Wow, Markie, that must be the most you've talked ever!" Pure sarcasm dripped from her words, with her voice intentionally being raised a pitch higher to add to her word's exaggeration.

This time it was Mark's turn to roll his eyes; he expected nothing less of snarkiness from this girl that self-proclaimed herself as his best friend. "What can I say, I'm a man of many wonders," he shrugged, for a moment having forgotten that her back was to him as she was still pulling him along.

"Yeah, if only you were a 'man,' now hush up- we're finally here," she had finally released her grasp on his hand to dig through her skirt pockets for a ring of keys. Mark simply stood there, arms folded over his chest not responding to Wendy's last remark. It wasn't until his eyes looked out of the rather large window of the door before them, did he speak up again.

"Uh...Wen... you know this is the rooftop, right?" Heavy hesitance laced in his words, he looked from the door to her then back to the door again.

She scoffed. Finding his question almost idiotic. "Yes, I'm very aware, Tuan. We've already been in this school for half a year, I only would hope to know my way around by now," her words came out with more malice than intended, but she was now fargone from patience as she seemed to have misplaced the keys. ".. and just when I had finally been able to take them without the teachers knowing..." she quietly murmured under her breath.

"You what?! Wendy, that's stealing!" Forget hesitance or caution, panic had just taken over the boy named Mark Tuan.

"Oh quiet. I guess we have to do this the hard way.." Wendy removed two bobby pins from her bleach blonde-dyed hair, crouching on her knees, closing one eye, and getting to work. "I saw how to do this online, don't worry."

"The fact that you know how to do this isn't what's worrying me most at the moment.." he - almost inaudible to her ears - said. A click had finally resounded, and as such a sound reached their ears so did a smile (at least to Wendy).

"Voila!" She turned the handle and pushed the giant fire-retardant door, letting the cool soon-to-be-spring air fill their lungs and brush back their hair. "C'mon, the view from here is great." Wendy took his hand once more, dragging him onto the rooftop.

"You've been here before?!"

"No. I told you already that I could only get my hands on the keys this one time. Until they somehow disappeared.. But I heard about this from friends," and simply shrugged. She already had her phone out with it turned to the front camera, snapping pictures of herself and Mark, who was not too far behind her.

"Who?"

"Joy and Yeri." She slipped her device back into her skirt pocket, having set her new goal to walk closer to the railing that surrounded the roof's perimeter, and Mark was left to only follow suit to make sure she didn't fall.

"You mean the underclassmen? Seungwan, they're bad news. Why are you even talking with them?" Mark rarely used her Korean name; especially being in a primarily English-speaking country, of course it wasn't highly common to be addressed as such. So once the two knew of each other's Asian names, they kept it an unspoken agreement to not use them unless for serious conversations. And this wasn't a serious conversation - at least not by Wendy's standards.

"Because they're people just like you and me. They have it hard enough with a bad reputation going around. They aren't bad kids, Yien. They are just misunderstood." Her arms rested against the cold metal, slightly leaning over the railing with closed eyes; her current appearnce counteracting her anger and frustration from beforehand- and Mark couldn't help but admire her serene expression, but he snapped back to reality before she could catch him staring.

"Misunderstood? How? They literally spray painted the Principal's car. Tell me how that is a misunderstanding," he rolled his eyes, refusing to believe such young delinquents were nothing short of - well - delinquents.

She snickered, recalling that memory and remembering how it all went down as she looked on from the sidelines. "Yeah, that was a pretty good one.." Mark looked to her in dumbfoundedness, unsure if Wendy was being serious or just playing him again. But before he could find out, she continued speaking. "Don't judge people based on their reputation and rumors, Yien. Learn about them before you go pointing out who they are. Don't call people out when you know nothing deeper than their skin. Starting thinking about their other organs too," the last part was thrown in as a light-hearted joke, but Mark had already gotten the gist of her words.

"Even with whatever they have going on, that still doesn't give them the right to destroy the possessions of others. If they dislike having all of these 'misunderstandings,' it doesn't help that they only live up to the constant words that spread around campus."

"Sometimes you have no other choice than to already stick with the name you're given, especially when it won't be believed-" she halted mid-sentence to open her eyes for a moment, looked to him for a solid five seconds before her eyes gazed up to the sky, "-believed that you can change. That you're different than how everything else seems."

He stayed silent. Brows deeply furrowed in a frown, finding this whole thing to be more confusing than how he believed it should be. "This sounds like some dumb drama."

She hummed softly, nodding her head. "I agree." Her hand slipped back into her pocket before pulling out a folded piece of paper. She slowly opened the paper, ensuring not to rip it, and tried to smooth out the creases.

"And yet you're still defending them?" He kept his focus on her, his expression having slightly softened, though curiosity overrode his mind now. It wasn't until she was close to completing the origami piece did he realize what she was making - well aware of what she planned to do with it and thought that perhaps this was one of the reasons for her intention in coming up here.

"Someone has to." She turned her head back in his direction, a genuine smile scrawled across her lips with gentle empathetic eyes to match. She held the paper plane up before throwing it over the railing. Their eyes remained trained on the soaring paper up to it slowly falling to the ground.

Her words seem to still ring so clearly in his mind. And unknowing to himself, the corner of his lips turn up into a soft smile.

He closes the image that he must've been staring at for maybe five or seven minutes. He continues his scrolling once more, until another image catches his eye. It isn't too far from the last one, maybe a year or two apart from when the previous was taken? And so he enlarges it.

At age 17 they were last minute prom dates.

Feet quickly ran across the rain-covered pavement. Drenched from head to toe with his previously styled hair now stuck closely to his forehead. His warm heaving breath could be seen in the chilled air, but he couldn't care less of his constricted lungs.

She needed him.

He arrived at the familiar white front door, giving a few knocks and awaited an answer. He knew she was home. He knew she was sitting on her living room couch watching old Disney movies with an array of food that is horrible for the body but great for the soul. And the subtle creak of the opening door and her appearance confirmed one of his assumptions.

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